Did you ever wish for life to be like it was in the old days ? When you knew your neighborhood pharmacist, when you opened your mailbox to find letters, and when you knew your town ? Well - It's coming back, and soon.

Remember looking up at the sky and not seeing contrails ? You will soon.

Want to buy an airplane for the same cost as a car ? Soon, you will. And you'll be able to fly it places too - For less than driving. (Flying on a passenger jet now costs about 6 times what it does to drive - Soon, no one can afford to fly and all the jumbo jets will be sold as scrap). You'll find that you can take a single engine Piper across the state to visit some friends - In a fraction of the time. It won't be easy to get a licence, but it will be more feasible than other methods of travel. Not everyone will have a plane, but if you work hard enough, you can achieve that goal. And with all the work work work you have to do today to keep up with bills - You'll NEVER be able to afford a plane. Look up, Buckaroo !

Ever long for the time in history when motoring was a pleasure - And passers-by gave a flick of the hat to other motorists ? It will return.

Have you ever, in the past year, been able to stand outside and not hear the droning hiss of car traffic ? Soon you will be able to.

Remember, in the US, after September 11th, 2001 - When there were no flights ? Remember how surreal everything was ? When people were nice to each other, because we had all suffered a loss ? It's coming again, only this time it's not going away after a few weeks.

Throughout the first half of oil production, no one could afford to touch a car - Maybe if you were rich. Well, looks like we had our moment. Flash in a pan. used it all up in a lifetime. Soon you'll see piles upon piles of cars to be scrapped - Ferraris will be as meaningless as Kias.

During the depression, anyone could start a business. Do you know how many car businesses came out ? You'll be able to actually go into your garage and MAKE something, and sell it out to the world - at a reasonable price - and actually be in control of your destiny ! Yeah, as demand for things drops, people lose their jobs - But what are we talking about for jobs anyway ? In our world today, you need "at least $14 an hour" or "At least $25 an hour"... to maintain a lifestyle.. But in the future of a broken society - You'll be able to get by with everything available, all for about the same money. Imagine paying a dollar for a movie again ! As demand falls, and production falls, Imagine your kids paying $1 for a gallon of gas - Primarily as a novelty, and not as a necessity.

All of these things can happen - the "Mad Maxing" of the planet is only a dark option - And we all like to look at Dark options. But Humans, while regarded internally as leeching and viral, are actually intelligent and adaptive. We adapt to life, and the world. If things get hotter, we'll adapt. Colder, we'll adapt.

Our current world leadership is in the shitter. We'll come out of it. We just need to be pushed far enough to be push back. I believe that limit is $6 a gallon gas. It's easy for us to cry that our leadership has lied to us - But the manufacturers have been lying to us ! They've been making shit thats more piggish, and then claiming all the while to "Respond to what people want". That's complete nonsense. What we've wanted are the cars of the future - And they add a nav screen to a fuckin Ford Escort and tell us it's a concept car. Fuck them. We can show them what's up, and I'm not just rallying the troops - so to say - But in the coming economic nightmare, we'll HAVE to show them what's up.

Life will work itself out. The Population will die out - If not by natural selection, then by a war-machine annihilation. Either way, Chaos theory shows us that regardless of the turmoil or patterns, life finds a way to survive.

your talking about people stop driving, everyone stop flying, all this. and honestly i dont see it happening. you make it seem like we are all gonna revert back to the 20's or something. im sorry i just dont see it happening, sure gas is the highest its been right now, but i doubt that many (by comparison to the whole) will actually stop driving or flying. most, like me, will suck it up and pay what you have to pay, because no matter how you look at it, for most of us, driving IS a necessity, not a novelty.

Want to buy an airplane for the same cost as a car ? Soon, you will. And you'll be able to fly it places too - For less than driving. (Flying on a passenger jet now costs about 6 times what it does to drive - Soon, no one can afford to fly and all the jumbo jets will be sold as scrap). You'll find that you can take a single engine Piper across the state to visit some friends - In a fraction of the time. It won't be easy to get a licence, but it will be more feasible than other methods of travel. Not everyone will have a plane, but if you work hard enough, you can achieve that goal. And with all the work work work you have to do today to keep up with bills - You'll NEVER be able to afford a plane. Look up, Buckaroo !

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No way. not in our lifetime anyway.

think about it.

the first cars sold to public in any amount were around in the late teens to early 20's.
in the 40s it was still rare to have a car. by the 50s it was pretty common for the average family to own 1 vehicle.

so, we have about 30 years, roughly.

ok, so the technology is already there for the airplanes-- i'll give it that. but the one thing that cars have on air planes-- is that there were already raods and horse trails that cars could go on.

there's about 5 small air ports in the state that I know of.

I'll tell your ass right now, i would not be flying to robertson air port in plainville, and then hiking 7-8 miles to go to my house.

I'll tell your ass right now, i would not be flying to johnnycake air port in burlington, and then hiking 7-8 miles to go to my house.

and i'll tell you right now, there isn't a patch of land big enough for a new air port anywhere in bristol.

so, unless they plan to tear down acres of commerical property, it simply will never be a reality.

we're still going to drive to the supermarket and to work...
where the fuck would you aprk 2313121 air planes at the office?

imagine trying to "pull out of the parking lot" at 5pm?

it would take 3 hours before its your turn to go down the run way.

and then, i gotta walk 5 miles home.

and thats IF there is a landing strip at my office....

not happeneing dude.

probably not till 2100 or so, when they master the hover craft thing... or that frankie muniz spy movie chopper thing...

Come on, there has to be a good side to things - There is always a good side to this shit.

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the only good side to rasing gas prices is the possibility of less people on the roads. people will learn to do all their errands in one stop. multi-stores like walmarts that have a grocery store will become more popular, and the stores next to nothing else will fail, as its "just another stop" to make.

other than that, i see NO good coming from this. none.

the only thing good in the immediate future, is that in 2008, there will be another election. and the Dem's will have a fighting chance for office by simply pointing high energy prices on bush's policy. not saying thats true or fact, but it will be a political angle taken, i'm sure.

IMO, they shoudl just lift the fucking embargo on cuba and Venezula... and buy their damn gas. does any fucking american give a shit about them being commies? I sure as fuck don't. They aren't trying to bomb us (iraq, korea, and china are-- and we do biz with them....), and other than their method of gov't being wack, who gives a shit? I'd love a cuban cigar from time to time... i'd love $1.50 gas again.

but no, fucktard politicians have to say they are bad, so embargo them.

its Bs from the 60's. that shit is old. hell, cuba and the USSR aren't even really allies any more. shit, the ussr doesn't even fucking exist any more. that shit was over when kennedy got shot... and we still have to play it out.

for what purpose? to prove a point? to better the world? other than Elian, most the people there live there for a reason... they probably like it there. I can think of 31212 places Worse to be... shit, new orleans is one of them right now.

Finally pushing some money back into cold-fusion research ?

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Macromedia already did. And its a crap SGML tag-style scripting language with no real power.

All nerd jokes aside, it's not the time for research. its the time for action. CF has a long way to go before its even practical- and then there's the whole radiation thing.
wtf happens in a wreck if the cells break? and they will. there is not one material that is cost-effective that won't break from a force of 500 G's or whatever in a serious crash. I don't see CF being a working item until at least most of us are retired, or on what's left of social security.

speaking of... strange how thats not been in the news lately... i guess bush's plan is a total joke, ehh?

back on track...

Here is one: Did you know that the Prius, Insight and Ford Escape Hybrids don't even have Otto cycle engines ? They have Atkinson cycle engines. They claim its more efficient.

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so, they doin't eat carbs, but eat a lot of fat? wtf?

Then why the FUCK have they been using Otto cycle engines ?! Mazda was the only company BALLSY enough to use alternative cycles (Miller and Wankel). Why are they telling us this shit now ?

Think we'll actually see the 100+ mpg cars ?

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i don't think the mpg car is going to change the world.
just look at what you see today.

i pass on average 1 hybrid a day. and thats usually E.
i pass on an average day at least 23423423 suv's, duallie pick ups with nothing in tow, 4-door huge ass trucks with a cap on it (meaning, its probably not used as a truck), and countless others.
and then the evos, sti's, mustangs, and so forth...

we want cars that look good, drive good, and perform good.

not very many americans really even look at gas mileage any more.

like E said in another thread-- if this 100mpg car comes out, and its 50 or 60 grand, it will take 12-15 years of driving it to equal out.

the average middle class american owns their car for like 5 years.
shit, i've gone through 4 in less time than that.
steve, you've even gone through a bunch of cars...

its just not going to work, until the price of the 100mpg car is on-point with pure gas, the performace is on-point with pure gas, and the practicallity of the car is on point with pure gas models.

GSRCRXsi@Aug 31 2005, 11:45 PMyour talking about people stop driving, everyone stop flying, all this. and honestly i dont see it happening. you make it seem like we are all gonna revert back to the 20's or something. im sorry i just dont see it happening, sure gas is the highest its been right now, but i doubt that many (by comparison to the whole) will actually stop driving or flying. most, like me, will suck it up and pay what you have to pay, because no matter how you look at it, for most of us, driving IS a necessity, not a novelty.

A lot of people don't seem to understand that the USA is a VERY open country. most other countries with high gas prices have really good public transit systems. In the US unless you live in the city, there's not much you can do other then to car pool with friends.

Before I go to bed, the one thing I have to be clear on is that I'm not saying you'll take a plane to your friends house.

I am saying that you can park a plane at our existing airports and locomote your own fat ass to New York, Canada or points otherwise. All of the modes and technologies that are out of grasp now (Tell me you can afford a trip ANYWHERE on ANY airliner for the next 6 months) will come down to meet our poor asses.

So we'll become poor, but the lifestyles will follow. Not saying the market will fall to meet us - But life will change, I'm only pointing out one possibility.

My Crystal ball is in the shop this week, so this is all guess work. This thread should be dedicated to the good we can see in all of this - Because the 4 running Chicken Little threads are a total buzzkill.

Like Celerity said, If things keep going the way they're going, we WILL see major change.

BUT

Like B said, people are damn lazy. It would take ALOT to motivate them to get up from their la-z-boys and change things.

Things would have to be insanely bad before people (at least americans) decided to get up and do something about it their damn selves.

And I for one, hope it does get that bad. I hope the problems we're having now spiral out of control, and can't recovered from before hitting absolute rock bottom. It'd only be temporary... whatever gets us off of our asses and motivates us is a good thing.

I just hope we can do it before it's all over for manufacturing and the space program.

If we reach a point of NO MORE fuel, we can't get into space - Perhaps for the rest of this human epoch. And we've gone and fucked up bad.

I hope someone out there in a position of control has had the foresight to keep these things protected, or that we get over this hump before we tap Yellowstone or the Arctic range. That will have enough energy left over for humanity-accelerating experiments. Then, however, we NEED to find fuel sources in space. Places like Saturn's Ammonia atmosphere come to mind.

Oh, and we HAVE artificial fuels out there, I found out. There is a gasoline substitute that is clean and completely lab-made. And it costs about $50 a gallon.

I'm curious as to WHY gas prices are going up.. Not politics, not scandals, nothing like that. Where the shit is all of this money going??

I mean, If they could pump a gallon of gas out of the ground, refine it, deliver it, and pump it into your vehicle for $1.00 back in 2000, what the hell has changed so much that it costs 3 times that? We ARE NOT running out of oil.. I don't give a damn what anyone says. I would expect gas to go up via inflation. From 2000 to now, maybe a 10 percent increase? So why the 300 percent increase? Did they switch to diamond tipped drills??

Someone's pockets are getting FAT. I know everything points to politics.. taxes.. towel headed bastards in the middle east.. but I KNOW they can sell it at $1.00 a gallon. They've done it. They did it for years. So why the hell can't they do it now?? Nothing has changed. There is still plenty of oil to go around.

Ok.... you don't think we're running out of oil?? Thats cool, believe whatever you like. Should we begin trying to get oil in other places?? Fuck no.

This would give us some relief from prices but would continue the destruction of the environment. For example, there is a machine that was invented that can replicate the natural process of turning vegetation/refuse into oil in a matter of minutes. Normally this would take hundreds of years but some guy invented a machine that can do it but the profit isn't as high per barrel of crude so people aren't fast to jump on the bandwagon. I myself would fully support this if not for a few simple figures. For example, I think it is said that the U.S. consumes like 75% of the oil that is produced yearly. Well... China is starting to become more industrialized, people are starting to get cars there. Since China has over 4 times the population of the U.S. what do you think is going to happen, greenhouse effect wise, when more of China begins driving?? Regardless of what you may have read or heard the polar caps are already melting, that will just increase the rate. It's a fact.... the earth is getting warmer. So what to do??

We HAVE to move to the hydrogen economy. The method HAS to be perfected. There is no other choice that makes as much sense at this time. It will be limitless, pollution free energy. If you want to learn more about it simply put in "Hydrogen Economy" in your browser. I would explain the chemistry but yall would probably find that boring. Suffice to say that the result of burning the hydrogen only gives off water vapor, no harmful side effects.

The only way we will see a hydrogen economy is through renewable fuel sources.

As far as gasoline, in the past 4 years there have been no new oil field discoveries. This is the Plateau of oil, No new stuff to be pumped. Now is the time to be hit with this, not later. We arne't running out of oil - That is very difficult to tell (And we won't know until they go to pump, and it's not there). But we are NOT finding new oil for China to live off of.

They joined the game,and things got seriously worse. China is giving it's oil to it's people to encourage them to work and travel - Grow so the economy can grow. It's not sustainable.

They are in Cahoots with the Venezuelan Basket, which is the cheapest out there.